


Litter Duty

by sciderman



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Humor, Love Confessions, Love Letters, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 10:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5623819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciderman/pseuds/sciderman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Littering is bad for everyone.<br/>One-shot where Wade is bad at writing poetry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Litter Duty

_Spider-man, oh, sweet Spider-man,_

_Roundest cheeks in the city,_

_I’d love to take you out sometime,_

_Something–– something––_

 

What rhymes with city?

 

_Titty._

 

“No, no, _no_.” A gravel tone grumbled in feverish frustration. After some time scratching punishingly at his forehead, he scrunched up the paper into a tight ball, tossing it off of the rooftop he was perched.

 

He’d thought about tossing himself off too, but it wouldn’t do much good. He’d only come back with fewer active brain cells, and try his hand at poetry again, somehow _worse_ than before.

 

“It’s getting pretty hard to imagine _worse_ than this.”

 

He chewed at the crayon in his hand, no mind paid to the coloured wax scraping and building behind his teeth. His concentration was that of a monk in _deepest_ meditative state. He was dedicated. He  was unrelenting fire. He was… completely, _totally_ out of ideas.

 

Go with something classic, he thought to himself. Something _timeless_.

 

_Roses are red._

 

Good start.

 

_Violets are blue._

 

Hey, look at you, Maya Angelou.

 

_I think you’re really hot,_

_And I’d like to land my plane right down your runway,_

_If you catch my meaning._

 

Another wad of crumpled paper flew off the rooftop.

 

Fact was, no matter how he could try to deny it, Deadpool always had a bad case of verbal diarrhea when it came to Spider-man.

 

Wade Wilson was an incredibly talkative man. He spoke his mind, in the form of a constant fire of punchlines. King of improv, _maybe_. Or just king of having no brain-to-mouth filter whatsoever. That’s a superpower, right?

 

It served him fine with enemies. And it’s something _tolerated_ by a few friends, but it had never become so troublesome as it was when talking to Spider-man.

 

Wade physically turned to jello. Every word in his vocabulary except, funnily enough, the _appropriate_ words, would pour out of his mouth, along with a significant amount of _drool_. Palms sweaty, all of that extra gross stuff to sprinkle atop of his already phenomenally unappealing package deal. (Four easy payments of $29.99, free postage, batteries not included.)

 

It’s no secret he’d found himself _head-over-heels_ for the webslinger. It made sense. Spider-man was witty, spry, firm-buttocked. Total dreamboat. Wade had been with a great number of _beautiful_ people. But he’d never felt so hot and heavy-handed as he did with the thought of _Spider-man._ He felt like a teenager who’s bought his first girlie mag, heavily breathing all over the gloss pages.

 

“Could I write that into a poem?”

 

_Spider-man, you make me feel like a teen,_

_Breath hot on the pages of a dirty magazine._

 

“It rhymes, at least.”

 

* * *

 

Peter Parker was thankful for the days where New York seemed to stand still for a little while. No murderers to chase around, no goblins or octopuses or any members of his absurd zoo-themed rogue gallery. Just wind in his webs, and the beautiful citizens of the beautiful city.

 

“Hey, jackass!”

 

Ah, the loving citizens of New York, New York.

 

“You can’t get away with that, you know? Leaving all your _gunk_ all over the city.”

 

Spider-man dropped in front of the lovely old lady, light on his feet, which span on a heel to look back at the scene the cheery woman was gesturing to.

 

Strings of webs left hanging off buildings. To some, a thrilling memento from New York’s homegrown hero. To this delightful elderly woman, and unfortunately, the _majority_ of this city’s populous? _Vandalism._

 

“You like to call yourself a hero, huh? How about you _do_ something for this city for once.” The elderly woman snapped, throwing a dust bag into the webslingers hands.

 

Peter could only look at the woman, then look down at the bag in his hands.

 

He was being put on litter duty? Seriously? Sure, it’s a slow day, but _litter duty?_

 

He would’ve protested, if the lovely lady hadn’t reminded him so much of his own dear Aunt May. That, and she’d left long before he could’ve gotten a word in edgewise.

 

Litter duty. _Litter duty?_ He scuffed his feet down the street.

 

 _“The Amazing Spider-man: Cleaning up these streets, every way he knows how.”_ He mumbled.

 

As if on queue, a wad of yellow paper rolled to his feet, fresh from having been tossed. First thing was to glance around for the criminal scum that _dared_ to litter the streets Spider-man patrolled.

 

Nobody around, but still, Peter picked it up and uncrumpled it, in the naive hope that whatever was held within might be more interesting than spending the rest of his afternoon collecting trash.

 

_How do I love thee? Let me count the webs._

 

Spider-man choked.

 

He threw his glance in every direction, desperate to identify a culprit.

 

No luck, of course. He kept on his patrol, tucking the bizarre Browning rendition in his waistband, to keep it separate from the trash he was sifting. Eventually he’d find another crumpled yellow paper, and bubbling curiosity forced him to read it too.

 

_Oh Spider-man, oh Spider-man,_

_I really want to be your man,_

_I’m pretty sure this rhyme’ll suffice,_

_Even though I used the word “man” twice._

 

It was now Peter cared to notice it was written crudely in red crayon, and scribbled out an obsessive amount of times. For somebody so horrendously _bad_ at writing poems, Peter found it flattering that they still dedicated themselves to writing poems for _him_. Or Spider-man. Whatever.

 

No sign of any culprit. Peter had been wishing this were some kind of breadcrumb trail, but the yellow paper only scattered a small alleyway, and followed no pattern whatsoever.

 

_Spidey, baby,_

_Slip a webline under my knees, baby,_

_Tie me up all you like,_

_Spidey, baby––_

 

Peter crumpled up that one before he finished reading, flushing red. These were getting worse and _worse._ Somebody out there in the world was enjoying sending Peter in circles reading provocative poems.  

 

It hit him.

 

Really, it bonked off his head. Another little yellow paper ball. Peter’s head shot up.

 

Oh, _duh_.

 

Peter had to bring a hand up to bury his face in, at his glaring obliviousness. And that, once again, he’d let his time be eaten up by senseless messing around.

 

Red boots swang giddily from the ledge of a rooftop overhead.

 

* * *

 

“I’ve got it!” Wade snapped his fingers, driving his crayon fast to paper, breaking it upon impact.

 

He looked, disappointedly, at the broken crayon in his hand, worn down far too blunt for him to get cohesive thought down to paper anyway. He permitted himself a disheartened frown.

 

“I guess I’ll call it a day.” He said, glumly. “I should’ve just tried _tweeting_ him or something. Less characters, less tears shed.”

 

“As if you could limit yourself to 140 characters. You’d _break_ the thing.”

 

“I _resent_ that. I can be concise if I mean to be–– _eee––yeesh––_  Oh god, Spidey. W-when did you get here? How long have you been standing there? I’ve been _trapped_ on this rooftop all day, thank _goodness_ you’re here.”

 

“Passing notes in class means _detention,_ you know.”

 

“I’ve got no _clue_ as to what you could be referring to right now.”

 

Spider-man brought his hand to his hip, pulling out a mess of crumpled yellow papers, dropping them into Wade’s lap.

 

“Picked up your litter for you. I’m on litter duty today.”

 

Wade looked down at his lap, silent for a long embarrassed moment. He cleared his throat.

 

“Litter duty? Psh. That’s so _lame_. My hard-on for you is officially gone.”

 

“If that means no more poems, then that’s the best news I could’ve ever hoped to hear.”

 

“Breaking my heart, baby boy. _Breaking my heart._ ” Wade brushed off his lap, collecting the remnants of his soul spread on paper like jelly on toast. He forced them back into Spidey’s hands. “You know these’ll be published in the _greatest_ contemporary poetry collection known to mankind someday.”

 

“So we’ll spare future generations the agony by trashing it now.” Spider-man held out the trash bag for Wade to dump the papers in.

 

“All these hurtful words solidify my resolve to become the world’s best loved poet.”

  
  
“Nobody loves contemporary poets.”

 

“I’d settle for only _you,_ then.”

 

Peter’s breath hitched so sharply, his intake of air felt like he swallowed a dagger.

 

Wade’s eyes darted down, a little ashamed. That was a _corny_ line. It was _bad._ That line should be crumpled up and thrown in the trash bag. Along with _himself_.

 

“This is a confession.” Peter spoke, dryly. It should’ve been phrased as a question, but instead was parceled as a statement.

 

Wade was frozen. His eyes didn’t know where to look. His hands didn’t know whether to stay at his sides or flail in panic.

 

“I-I’d like to take you out–– sometime–– something something–– dirty magazine––” He mumbled in hysteria, his hands wringing each other, like they were in a world-class wrestling match. One hand came to the back of his neck, scratching almost furiously at it. His head bowed, as if he were sobbing over the ridiculous string of words pouring from his mouth. “I-I think you’re really hot–– plane, runway, etcetera. Date me.”

 

Spider-man stared at Deadpool, silent.

 

“Nobody has ever said anything so romantic to me before.” He breathed out, in mocked reverence.

 

Wade whined.

 

“Ugh, I _know_ , right?” He chortled. His voice was _pained_.

 

The mercenary turned, fast, briskly walking away. He was seriously rethinking not throwing himself off this rooftop. Solid escape from this trainwreck of a confession.

 

“It was nice talking to you, as ever, sweetcheeks. But I simply _must_ be going.”

 

“Hey, man–– _Wait_.” Spidey called out.

 

Wade’s pace picked up to a jog, then a run, and then a mad sprint, jumping straight to other rooftops, till he was just a silhouette on the horizon.

 

Peter watched as the man got away. _This_ time.

  
For now, Pete’ll _keep_ the poems. 


End file.
